1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to programming development environments performed by computers, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for displaying relationships between elements copied from forms to HTML pages.
2. Description of Related Art
With the fast growing popularity of the Internet and Intranets, especially Web-based networks, there is also a fast growing demand for access to server-hosted applications via the Internet. Web-based networks operate using the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). HTTP is the protocol used by Web clients and Web servers to communicate between themselves using these hyperlinks. HTML is the language used by Web servers to create and connect together documents that contain these hyperlinks. This protocol and language results in the communication and display of graphical information that incorporates hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are network addresses that are embedded in a word, phrase, icon or picture that are activated when the user selects a highlighted item displayed in the graphical information.
The Internet has considerable potential to provide access to powerful and complex applications implemented at the Web server to a broad scope of remote clients. This implementation has important benefits such as reducing computer memory and processing requirements at the remote client, and increasing the security of the application by retaining selected portions of the application in a secure location in the Web server. Thus, there is a need in the art for methods of accessing software across an Internet or Intranet, and especially via Web-based networks. Further, given the quickly expanding scope of Internet-related applications and the shortage of qualified programmers, there is a need for a simplified environment for developing such software applications. Co-pending and commonly assigned application Ser. No. 08/828,890, entitled “HTML INTEGRATION UTILITY FOR A PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT,” filed on Mar. 31, 1997 by Howard J. Glaser discloses such an environment. It is further desirable for that development environment to be compatible with a wide variety of other authoring tools so that the best features of each tool can be fully utilized. Co-pending and commonly-assigned application Ser. No. 09/102,038, entitled “PROGRAMMATIC SWITCHING OF ARBITRARY HTML FORMS,” filed Jun. 22, 1998 by Howard J. Glaser, Daniel E. House, Constance J. Nelin, Rebecca B. Nin, and Brian J. Owings discloses a system and method allowing switching of HTML pages generated with any arbitrary authoring tool.
Although the ability to modify HTML pages generated with an arbitrary authoring tool through a convenient development environment is invaluable, developers must be able to keep track of element mappings from the forms generated by the development tool to the HTML pages. To implement programmatic switching of arbitrary HTML, it is also important to provide the user with simple way to modify the mappings. Further, where the user is permitted to alter the mappings between elements and HTML pages, it is important that the user be alerted when the alerted mapping is invalid. The present invention satisfies these requirements by providing a HTML mapping and substitution graphical user interface (GUI).